A Short History of the United States

This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery.

Learning all 50 U.S. states is easy when you learn from The Little Man In the Map! Asked by their teacher to find clues for memorizing the states, students begin to see imagesa hat, a shirt, a pair of boots formed by state boundaries. When they put some of them together, they’re amazed to find the outline of a man standing in the middle of the map. Excited by their discovery, they draw a face and arms on him and create The Little Man In the Map, whom they nickname MIM. Their imaginations bring MIM alive, and with his help they discover the surprising roles all the states can play. Soon they can spot the elf, the playful dog, the spooky head, and all the others. This imaginatively illustrated story, narrated in rhyme by The Little Man In the

This review is from: A Short History of the United States (Kindle Edition)

Yes, this is a free Kindle book and yes, the hard copy costs over forty dollars. The Kindle version is still a bad deal.

The layout of the Kindle version is messy and all smashed together in a run on sort of text.

Rather than the actual photos- of which there should be many- there is in its place parentheses with a description of what you wish you could view.

The table of contents in not navigable so you have to go start to finish in the book even if you wish you could just jump to the chapter on say, Slavery in the Territories. A history book is the sort of book I like to be able to leaf through, go back and forth easily, jump ahead to a particular topic and you just can’t do it with this version.

At the end of each section, there are chapter questions and topics so a teacher could make great use of this book. Following that are Topics For Special Work if the teacher was interested in doing term projects. The writing is very simple (see my comment in comments below).

If this is a book that would interest you, I really encourage you to go with the hard copy.

This review is from: The Little Man In the Map: With Clues To Remember All 50 States (Hardcover)

“A blank map of the U.S.A. plus your imagination are all you need to learn the states–all fifty in our nation.”

A man in the map, a pack of schoolbooks, a mitten, a drinking cup, a longhorn chair and Old Man winter are just a few of the imaginative cues that Andrew Martonyi and Ed Olson have created to help children remember the shape and place of the 50 states.

Ed Olson has extensive experience with companies such as Walt Disney, Warner Brothers and Sony. This experience is evident in the quality of the illustrations in this book. His purpose, as stated on his blog is “to bring US Geography alive and let kids experience geography through their own eyes and imagination and make learning geography easy and fun.”

I think my kids definitely agree. I have been using mnenomic based aids in our schoolwork over the last few years whenever I can find them. For kids with memory problems, they are very helpful. My nine year old daughter especially was quite taken with the imaginative illustrations.

The first section of the book is devoted to the states of Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas and Louisiana. When viewed in isolation, they most definitely resemble a man with a hat. The remainder of the book is divided into regions — Northeastern, Southeastern, Midwestern, South Central, Western, Alaska and Hawaii. I would study each of the regions separately, or to go along with a unit study.

I’ll be happy to review this with my kids again. It definitely takes the “yuck” out of geography and I look forward to when they release the title for state capitals!

This review is from: The Little Man In the Map: With Clues To Remember All 50 States (Hardcover)

When I was in grade school back in the early 70s, I learned American geography through rote memorization. As a result, if I were tested to write in all the names of the sates on a map of the US Today, I would probably get a C at best. E. Andrew Martonyi’s delightful “The Little Man In the Map” has changed that for the children in my life. It provides charming clues which help kids learn geography by heart. Ed Olson’s illustrations are enchanting and captivate young imaginations, making geography magical and fun.

I bought this book for my nephew’s fifth birthday, along with some art supplies and candy. He ignored the other gifts and carried “The Little Man In the Map” around all day, even looking at it in front of the TV. My sister reports his fascination has not faded.

This book should be in every school across America. Buy it for every kid you know and take it to their teachers!